


sleepless

by quill_and_parchment



Series: A Sense of Adventure [7]
Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Dungeons & Dragons Campaign, F/M, Fluff, Literal Sleeping Together, Magic-Users, Post-Canon, Sleepiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:14:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26139475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quill_and_parchment/pseuds/quill_and_parchment
Summary: This has been sitting unfinished for too long man but I finally got there
Relationships: Apprentice/Julian Devorak, Julian Devorak/Original Female Character(s)
Series: A Sense of Adventure [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1820728
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	sleepless

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting unfinished for too long man but I finally got there

Thora can’t sleep.

She sits up against the sturdy headboard, brushes the hair away from her face and out of her mouth. The window is open, letting in a cooling breeze. It’s the middle of the night - she can see the stars over the treetops, glittering in the sky. How long she’s been restless for, she doesn’t know, but something feels...off, keeping her from relaxing. (She’s slept, she thinks, but how long, she cannot even guess.)

She slips out of bed, takes a dressing gown off the sturdy wall hooks and wraps it around herself. It’s summer here, and the bedcovers are light. She had enjoyed being Countess Nadia’s guest, but the rough-hewn, utilitarian decor feels more satisfying to her. It’s the clothes that are so different - long dresses, aprons, furs, jewels set in twisted metal. She was not surprised at all to find simpler things in the chest of drawers in this room, _her_ room, or to hear that she had always shied away from the finery.

There is no four-poster bed in her room; it looks like it could be guest quarters. A hearth is opposite the great bed, mantle topped with forest treasures - rocks glittering with mineral chips, a fragrant pine branch, the delicate skull of a small rodent. 

_The bed is far too big for just me_ , she thinks, apropos of nothing. Then what’s missing clicks - Julian is here, but not _here_ . Where? Her mind is fuzzy with lost sleep; she grasps for it and then remembers he’s in a guest room. He arrived yesterday, with the investigators, at the bath house. He had known, she could see it on his face, but he had been a perfect gentleman to her afterwards, kissed her hand and called her ‘ _your majesty_ ’ and of course she had blushed.

These memories come while she takes a cylindrical lantern from the wall by the door, lights it with her magic (squints, bright, rubs her eyes), and walks down the hall. Past her brothers’ rooms (mostly empty while they rule in other provinces), past her father (his infamous battleaxe mounted over his door), past the elk head looming on the wall, out across a painted mosaic to another wing. She cannot remember which rooms are for guests, and pokes into a couple of them - storerooms, mainly, although she finds what must be Helgi’s meditation space - before she does remember and starts looking on the other side of the hall.

The lantern is hooded, and she draws it down so as not to wake anyone before opening doors. There are ten guest rooms (she counted the other day, out of boredom). The first four are empty, the dragonborn and the acrobat are in the next two, fast asleep, and next to them is the cat, awake. She can tell by the way his eyes shine flatly in the dark like coins, whispers a hasty apology and moves on. It’s a little eerie, in fact. The next two rooms are also empty, and her heart jumps into her throat - but the lantern catches a flash of white, and she draws up the hood and dares to go in.

Julian is sitting on the end of the bed, just starting to take off his boots - _how long has he been up?_ she thinks - but he looks up at the flash of the lantern and her heart thumps hard in her chest.

He’s bent over almost in half, and the front of his shirt is open, and the hair is hanging over his face like always. The light shines on pale skin and paler fabric, catches the coarse red hair on his chest just so (there is not much, only a thin dusting, like a first snow). It casts artful shadow in all his angles - high cheekbones, sharp jawline, muscles standing out in his neck and shoulders, jut of his collarbones. It transforms his wide grey eyes into little pools of quicksilver, and sets the auburn whorls of his hair aglow.

She stares, and her breath comes out in a little gasp. She feels she could look at him like this nigh on forever, because Julian is _beautiful_ , and always is, and always will be.

He sits up straighter, gazes at her a little softer. “And to what do I owe this privilege, my dear?” 

She must look a sight - hair mussed, dressing gown coming loose around her - and she is conscious of this. But to Julian she looks like a vision, a dream made real. Standing in the open doorway, cast in a warm pool of lantern light, dressing gown coming open (he can see the tops of her breasts, or at least the shadow cast upon them) and a look of wonder on her face. _Princess_ , he thinks, because she deserves the title, now, looking like she has found a secret in the night.

And then he winks, grins, crosses one ankle over the other and holds out his hands to her. “Have you come to tuck me in?”

She tuts, closes the door and sets the lantern down on the flagstone with a clunk. "Where have you been, Ilyushka?" The nickname comes out of her mouth doused in softness, and his heart aches to hear it again. (No one has called him that since he was a teenager, in Nevivon.) She takes the invitation, comes to him and hugs him about the torso and he hugs her back, one hand at her back and one at her head. She brushes the hair away from his face (so gentle) and kisses the eyelid that had been hidden for so long, sclera once colored red and diseased but now is not. His heart pounds. His body has a low threshold for pleasure, the bar perhaps brought down over the years.

Thora does not miss this, her chest just brushing his, and she is sure her eyes are sparkling. She has learned over time - how he likes to be and responds to being touched, how eager he is to please, submissive, pliant. His face is open, expectant; his hands rest on her sides but are not relaxed. "I, um...wandering." 

He makes to stand, and she gathers the pile of jacket and coat and gloves on the untouched bedcovers. "There's an art gallery downstairs, with paintings of all your family." He grins, teeth gleaming in the light. "And one of you as a little girl, fresh from the forest and in a mood that could have stopped a wolf in its tracks."

She laughs, imagining a girl with black hair, muddy clothes and feet, scowling fiercely. She picks up the lantern and walks toward the door, and Julian opens it for her, seeing her hands full. 

“Where are we going?” A gentle hand on the small of her back, and she is struck hard by weariness. The flame of the lantern begins to dim and shrink; with the hood up, it does not cast a very large pool of light at all, barely enough to see each other by.

Julian notices this, notices how much Thora relaxes at his touch, and takes the lantern from her. He remembers the realm of the Tower, the little lessons after that, and stops walking. _Nothing says a doctor can’t learn magic_. He has picked up bits and pieces over time, taken careful notes, as vigilant about it as he is with science. (He doesn’t care to be a full-fledged magician, only to learn enough to get in trouble.)

“Ilya? What are you doing?”

“Shh.” He closes his eyes, traces the circle in his mind and holds it there while he thinks of fire. Tart smell of woodsmoke, little snaps and crackles, the warmth and light (so wanted on a cold night)...and the cursed Lazaret, set ablaze for good.

Thora watches him, entranced. The light she cast is gone, and there is suddenly one in Julian’s hand instead, a palmful of fire that shows the concentration on his face, the pinch of his brow. He looks angry, and she wonders what he is thinking of. She can smell oncoming rain, suddenly, and sea salt - his magic.

She is so proud of him. He's getting better and better.

He smiles at her, brilliant, and puts the flame into the lantern. There is the hand at her back again - warmer than usual, the one he cast the spell with. It shepherds her, urges her back to bed. They keep walking.

"Your mother, the queen," he asks, alongside her, "Did she die?" He has his doctor voice on. She hasn't heard it since they arrived here, since the first night when she gave herself a hangover like a giant's footfalls. They cross the mosaic again, the tapping of his boots echoing through the hall.

"Yes. While I was away."

"It wasn't the plague, was it?" His voice is grim; she shakes her head.

"No. She was sick, but of something else. Your flame is dying, Ilya," she points out, "deep breaths, remember?"

He glances into the lantern. It is indeed dying, guttering and shrinking in the face of his worry. She is taking slow, tired breaths, and he matches his rhythm to hers, imagining breathing life into the fire with every exhale. "Good," she says, "really good," and the praise sings through his blood and the flame burns strong. It casts its light onto a rack of quarterstaffs on the opposite wall, a door, ajar, and the end of the passage.

"You never told me where we're going."

"My bedroom." Julian grins, sultry, and his voice drops into a purr.

"Ohhh? Will I be having a midnight tryst with the princess, then?" He delights in the thought - kneeling on the flagstones at her feet, stripped bare, waiting for a command, to follow her orders. Then used as she pleases, cast aside from the bed, tail tucked between his legs…

(Nothing so extreme as that has happened before, but he can hope.)

"Can you bring the flame over here?" Thora’s voice comes from the open door; she is sitting on the end of the bed, a great hearth in front of her, piled with fuel, his loose clothes banished somewhere. A window hangs open; a breeze drifts in from the depths of the forest outside it.

Julian closes the door behind him with a foot, hangs the lantern on a hook and scoops out the flame. It is warm, almost hot, but poses no bodily danger. He brings it over to her and tosses it into the hearth, underhand. The wood is dry, and the fire gnaws on it with eager teeth.

He runs his fingers through his hair, and _just like he looked in the forest_ , Thora thinks. She rises and goes to him, and catches his lips with hers when he turns his head to look at her. They kiss once, twice, three times, a hundred, slow and indulgent. He takes her by the waist and draws her close, almost pressing against him. Hands run restlessly up and down her back, come up to cup her face; he sighs into the kiss, delighted and longing. Behind him, the fire swells, blazes, roars, fills the hearth and bangs on its walls to be let out, gifts him with an orange corona and sets his hair to glowing like hot copper.

“Ilya, the fire -“ and he yelps, shields her from it and draws them away.

“Sorry,” he says, sheepish, and it shrinks, magic ebbing away. “I didn’t mean to, I just - it got away from me.”

“I could tell.” Thora smiles, mischievous and amused but far from mean. “You just need more practice, like we talked about.”

Julian flops backwards dramatically onto the plush bed. Whether drained from the sudden exertion, or tired to the bone, it’s impossible to tell. His long legs dangle off the end, boots still on, heels scraping the floor.

“When was the last time you got some rest? No, let me guess.” She makes a mock-thinking face. “Yesterday...you slept for three hours.” She kneels on the floor, loosens the thick knotted cord holding his boots tight to his thighs, and eases them off. “You need to take better care of yourself. That magic isn’t there for you to rely on anymore.”

“I know.” His voice is thick, clotted with sleepiness, resigned.

“One of these days I really will have to pin you down.” She sets the boots aside, looks up at him, sighs. “Do I have to undress you or can you do it yourself?”

“I’d much rather you do it, darling.” He props himself up on an elbow, looking down at her, expression roguish. “And you know how much I like to be pinned. How about tonight?”

She considers for a minute, turns it over in her mind. Julian sits up and flops over onto his front, curls hanging invitingly over his face. “You could use that new spell you’ve been practicing.” One eyebrow lifts slightly, and the desire is writ plainly in his eyes. “Or you could just hold me down however you like, I won’t stop you. You know I’ll be good.”

“Ilya,” Thora manages, before she lets out an all-consuming yawn and her eyes remain shut. She feels a gentle kiss on her forehead, hears the rustling of Julian’s shirt as he pulls it off and tosses it aside. She climbs up onto her bed, already dazed with sleep creeping in.

“Come on, up you go.” Julian’s voice is gentle and soothing as he eases her farther up; her head lolls onto a goose-down pillow. Her face has cleared, childlike, and he cannot resist stroking her cheek gently with the back of his knuckles, the pad of his thumb, before easing the bedlinens out from under her and tucking her in.

He eases himself into bed, trying not to disturb her, but her nose crinkles despite his best efforts, bothered. “Sorry,” he whispers.

“S’okay,” Thora mumbles, expression peaceful again.

Julian only gazes at her face for a long moment. A breeze flutters the light linens, and he speaks before he has fully realized the thought, voice heavily laden with love and gratitude. “I must be the luckiest man in the world to be here with you right now.”

His only reply is a faint smile, the last thing Julian sees before he closes his eyes and - _finally_ \- drifts off to sleep.  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes I read other people's work and it makes me feel like I'm not that great? Like everyone else has such flowery prose and I'm just here, adequate


End file.
